Welcome to Monday

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Well that might keep me in the will for awhile... :-)

Let's see, I have all the portents of a truly crappy week ahead of me ('cept for mom's bday), in short Monday has not started well. I'll just get the unpleasantness out of the way.

I woke up at 3am, dozed off and on and finally went to the second alarm at 3:50am (set to go off at 5:07am), snuggled the wife real savage like and finally lumbered out of bed like a bear awoken too early from hibernation stumbling about a cold cold room at 4:20. I did not want to go into the gym today, had no problems fully embracing my Sunday rest day and... bleh.

So I sit on the couch and drink my morning coffee and finally head in, irked with my whiny butt. I'm still in a bit of denial about the whole 'fall' thing so I had the heater blasting while wearing just shorts and a t-shirt on my way into the gym, but I also put my panniers in the garage - a concession to the inevitable. So I'm sitting on my pal the upright, idly turning the pedals, prepping the iPod (untangling the ear buds) and wondering what the heck I'm doing on the bike in the first place.

What is it with me and bikes?

They're addictive devices spawned straight from the furnaces of the seventh circle of hell and, "Hi, my name is Bill and ever since goFast introduced me to the country road I've been a bike addict." When did that happen? The long ride, the quiet, the unremembered epiphanies, the casual glance at the arrayed computers for a check on how I'm doing, how far I've gone. Next summer I want to do a century for absolutely no reason what-so-ever. I think the MS society has one right in the middle of that blast furnace called August, and why not? Strap on a t-shirt for a cause, maybe get a free water bottle and suffer for science. Why not? Maybe I can even get TomS to go with me.

He'll probably drop me, the prick.

Saturday I'm in the Trek store for some made up reason just looking at precious and hanging. I notice that the higher end Madone's have their cables going into the frame of the bike and I want it. The next thing I know I'm on the darned Trek Project One site custom building one. I was playing around with components trying to get the price down to the range of my bike and... WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! I never could do it, get the price down enough, even for me and when it comes to this sort of stuff I can be very flexible. My wife is certain I'm going through a mid-life crises.

I'm hammering out the first interval when the Garmin just gives up the ghost and goes blank. So there is no record of my suffering today. Well except this post, and you having to wade through it. It sorta gave me fair warning this morning. When I cut it on it said 'low battery' - thing is that's hard to address in the locker room.

The iPod is playing the crap Bill isn't in the mood for play list and I'm just gutting that out. I figure it's probably best to keep my head down at this point in time, lay low before the REAL nightmare (whatever it is) begins. So I listen to one sucky song after another, and it's all my fault, don'tcha hate that? I mean I selected them at one time. So I pay it forward and don't hit the 'skip' button hoping whatever lies ahead realizes that I'm cowed and moves on.

I finish the intervals and do some of the ABS halfhearted before heading to the lockers. Am I at some sort of crossroads here? Where is the joy and anticipation I once had or is this just a bad set of days?

And of course I weigh 202lbs, four pounds over last week.

Welcome to Monday.